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Culture shock; Editorial; Beaver County Times; January 23, 2011.
The editorials tells us, “a study of more than 2,300 undergraduates found 45% of them showed no significant improvement in the key measures of critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing by the end of their sophomore years. In fact, half did not take a single course requiring 20 pages of writing during their prior semester, and one-third did not take a single course requiring even 40 pages of reading per week.” For the Times editorial board and its other in-house pundits who attended college, this would explain a lot. I know little about the study, but I’d be careful trying to link quality of education with simple metrics like the number of pages read and/or written.
The editorial goes on to say, “But let’s face it. Colleges and universities can’t be too hard academically because the students they are supposed to be educating are products of a Lake Wobegon culture where ‘all the children are above average.’ Want to see real anger? Try imposing rigorous academic standards on children from the time they start kindergarten. The reaction of outraged parents to their children receiving well-deserved C’s and D’s, not to mention a few well-placed F’s, would make the storming of the Bastille look like a church picnic.”
So, how does the Times propose to determine “well-deserved C’s and D’s, not to mention a few well-placed F’s?” For heaven knows what reason, the Times has an editorial history of opposing tests to evaluate what K-12 kids learn, whether the tests are mandated by the feds (which I oppose as noted here) or the states. Previous examples include “Educational boondoggle,” “Testing,” “Test results,” “Test happy,” and “Incomplete grade.” One of the gripes is the use of tests pushes teachers to “teach to the test” as if that’s something bad. Isn’t the purpose of standardized tests to ensure students learn those things we as a society deem important to learn? Therefore, doesn’t it make sense to “teach to the test?” By “teaching to the test,” teachers are teaching students what we’ve determined is important. This editorial is about college students, but the same principles apply.
Then, after claiming tests don’t tell us what kids learn, the Times publishes editorials asserting this or that school district is failing its students and taxpayers and uses test scores as proof! Using the Times own logic, how do we know those allegedly failing school districts aren’t really doing a top notch job? In none of its editorials decrying testing has the Times suggested a means to “measure of the quality of education.”
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